


Event Horizon

by Webtrinsic



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Ahsoka Tano Needs a Hug, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bruises, Crying, Drowning, Fever, Hallucinations, Hurt Ahsoka Tano, Hypothermia, Kidnapping, Master & Padawan Relationship(s), Pneumonia, Protective Anakin Skywalker, Starvation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:55:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28115004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Webtrinsic/pseuds/Webtrinsic
Summary: Ahsoka Tano is in a freezing, blackened cell for days. It is nothing short of torture.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano
Comments: 17
Kudos: 197





	Event Horizon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Burnedrecord](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burnedrecord/gifts).



> name is from the song in ad astra so id listen to it while reading :)

**Day one:**

The cell is small, small enough that for once she is actually proud of her small stature. If Anakin or Master Obi-Wan had been locked in such a space she’s sure it’d be nothing close of claustrophobic.

She could spread her arms out and touch the cell walls with the barest tips of her fingers while the ceiling was only an inch or two taller than the tops of her montrals. If she’d jumped it’d surely end in bruises and possibly a low grade concussion.

The togruta isn’t sure if she’s on a ship, or if she was on a base somewhere in the outer rim. But she did know it was cold and the meager thin cut cloth of a blanket they had given her would not be enough to stop her core temperature from dropping. 

The only light in the cell is from the slit in the door that she knows can be shut from the outside. The one at the bottom of the door was locked, a door for food but so far they had yet to pass her anything. 

Around her neck is a band, one fitted to the point her fingers couldn’t get under it to try to pry it away from her throat, it cutting the force off from her entirely. The situation is bleak and she knows her only hope is that her master has caught on and is currently on his way.

Hopefully he has a better understanding of her whereabouts than she does. Bundling the sorry excuse for a blanket around her, the young togruta backs herself into a ball in the corner, less than content to wait for rescue.

**Day two:**

A bowl of porridge is sent through the hatch, the bowl itself is made of the same ingredients as her rations. It is a smart system, one that allows them to feed her without the need for cutlery she could possibly use against them.

Even so, with her teeth, if they were giving her real food. It isn’t likely they would give her utensils anyhow. Another damper on her situation. The porridge is a thick sludge that clogs her throat as she swallows it down.  Molasses in her gut she can already feel her stomach acid destroy and break down. _Hungry_. It’s a grating contrast to the rashion bowl that flakes, sticking to the glue in her throat. Building scales as she forces it down in an attempt not to choke. And when she does, she realizes there is a tube pressed through the not fully shut little door.

Pulling herself down onto the ground, her blue eyes peek through the gap only to see another wall and the bottom of a jug sloshing with water and the other end of the tube fixed inside. There is nothing else in view to aid her, the most she could make out was she was at the end of a long empty hall.  One that she knew would be vibrating with sound if there was any, but alas, she was alone and the gap was too small for her to get her knuckles through. Pulling the tube into her mouth, the water quenched the salty thirst on her tongue.

When she’s completed the meal she’s still less than sated, but a rolling grate of sound comes down the hall. Getting back onto her side to make out the shoes of her captor, it is revealed by the dirtied and dusted panel that glides across the ground: it is an old droid, seemingly an R-unit watching over her care. If one could call it that.

She uses her breath to keep her cramping fingers warm. The tips of her montrals are stiff, and the blanket does little to fix it.

**Day Three:**

A bucket passes under the door and Ahsoka doesn’t move from her corner, her limbs cramped and her stomach already aching for more food which a bucket certainly isn’t. The bucket pulls back after an hour of it sitting there with disuse.

She would have thrown it back at the droid, but with the smell of mildew in the outer hall she isn’t sure if that’d garner a response. For all she knew they’d left her here alone with only a droid that could very likely break down at any second, in watch of her.

She wonders if she asks for another blanket it’d fetch one for her. Probably not, but the bucket is gone and both windows are shut leaving her in the dark before she can get the words out.

**Day four:**

The droid doesn’t come and her body shivers. Her nails ache after she bit too far, cutting them too short. It isn’t a habit of hers, it might be after. But for now she takes mercy on the black pieces, pulling them away from her all too sharp teeth.

Teeth that has even left the skin on her hands raw. She hadn’t realized she’d practically been gnawing at the appendages.

The cells lack of light only triples the lack of warmth. More and more the worn fabric splinters off, thinning into loose threads that could not be woven again. Not that she hadn’t tried. It was absolutely futile.

**Day five:**

There is food and water once again and Ahsoka knows now what the pattern is. So she drinks with her chapped and blue tinged lips, soaks in as much of the heady nourishment she is allowed and tentatively knocks on the door before the droid can excuse her to eat.

The droid comes to a halt, whirring sounds of it’s ventilator piercing her stiff head tails that resemble icicles. 

“A blanket please?” her voice is hoarse from disuse, and her teeth chatter audibly with her plea. The beep it let’s out in turn is so warped she can’t be sure if it’s an affirming answer. 

It rolls away and the togruta doesn’t realize she’s been holding her breath, waiting for it’s return. Subsequently crying when there is no drag of cloth in it’s return as the tube is pulled back and the two doors close again, leaving her in the frigid darkness.

**Day six:**

The bucket is pulled away and Ahsoka resigns herself to meditation even though without the force there is no point other than practice. Sitting in the middle of the room on top of a rusted drain, it is hard for her fingers to curl and her joints to stretch as she gets into position.

Tears drip down her face as she calls out for her master, brows pinched in irritation, knowing he cannot hear her thoughts. Even as his name is simultaneous to a cannon in her subconscious. 

**Day seven:**

Her cage fills with water, rising so rapidly it is already up to her neck before she can catch her bearings at the sudden development. Her montrals scrape the ceilings causing the skin to break. 

Fear clambers at her throat as her body locks up, unable to break surface tension as the room is engulfed. It is no different if her eyes are open or closed. If she’s honest, she’d rather die in battle than drown in a place with no sun, numb without a soul in existence.

Before she can turn to ice, the swirling of the drain rips the water away quickly enough to send her body to the floor. It is a miracle the impact doesn’t break her into a million of tiny pieces.

Her clothes mold to her skin and unconsciousness is no different than her current conditions.

**Day eight:**

Her head pangs and as she eats she knows in time, sooner rather than later, she will come down with some sickness that will likely be the death of her. It isn’t the time to sit back and wait, no matter how badly her body wants her to.

Her first attempt at ramming the door only makes the pain worse. Blooms new pain in her shoulder as she does it again, and again, and again. 

**Day nine:**

Congested to the point of delirium, her skin burning as it freezes, Ahsoka hasn’t stopped her attempts at the door. Her left shoulder is black with bruising, badly enough the bone and cartilage are breaking. 

The thought of trying to lift her arm is agony. A confused beeping startles her, making her hit the door that much harder as the droid on the other side tries to offer the bucket. 

The door falls off its hinges, onto the droid and the bucket, crushing them. A choking laugh bubbles in the pit of her enclosed throat at the sight. It isn’t until she’s wheezing and breathless, eyes opening again from her laughter that it is apparent the door hadn’t broken, she’d merely tripped over the bucket the annoyed droid had forced through the little door while she’d been ramming against it.

Her tears wear through her dried out tear ducts as if they were canyons in a sanded desert. The fourteen year old can’t help her rage, her fatigue, potentially her own folly as she rolls onto her back.  Eyes patterned with a clarity that would not last long, she was sure. The droid takes the bucket and leaves, just missing her screaming.

“Anakin!”

“Master,”

“Please somebody help me,”

No one hears, not even herself.

**Day ten:**

The togruta’s body doesn’t even shiver, sweltering with onset hypothermia and pneumonia. Her delirius mind mutters, and the droid outside throws a fit because she won’t get up and eat the food it was presenting.

“No sky-uy ‘ant eat bugs,” 

“Fwoppy saber,”

“Stupid seppies,”

Nothing she murmurs tracks, and most of the words are stuck on her tongue and teeth. The droid takes the meal back and leaves her to her delirium. It’s orders were to keep her alive, or as close to death as possible, but it would seem she was cutting it too close, and it’d need to call in for reinforcements.

The droid is so out of service, it makes a mistake as it calls out, one so bad it brings the master straight to his padawan.

**Day eleven:**

He follows the call for medical assistance, Kix and Rex close to him as they check for signs of life throughout the base. The clones easily pick up on the man’s recklessness, it’s been worse than usual with Ahsoka missing.

If they didn’t find her soon, they were sure the man might just get himself, or many, _many,_ others killed. They all bristle at the freezing temperature, relieved at the R-3 twirling in circles, unable to tell they were not in fact the people who’d programmed it.  It leads them down the facility's long empty halls, all the way up until the shut door at the end. At the ready, they pop the door open, weapons dropping in seconds when they find their missing togruta on the floor.

Her orange cheeks are tinged red, eyes shut, her lashes frosted. Her breaths are shallow, so shallow her chest barely moves with them, Anakin moves to press his hands to her pulse only to come in contact with the chilled metal that had been smothering their bond.

His anger is incomprehensible.

* * *

On the Resolute a medical droid changes the girl out of her clothes and into a pair of scrubs. Now the girl is swaddled in heated blankets, her head resting on her master’s chest. The tips of her montrals brushing against the underside of his chin.

“How is she?” Obi-Wan croons, taking a seat on the closest chair. 

“Cold,” Anakin answers bluntly, seething as he further pulls the blanket around her person. Careful of the IV in her arm and the healing scrapes on her stripes as he presses comfort across their bond, the girl finally free of her collar.

“She’s going to be alright,” 

Anakin knows that and it doesn’t make what had happened better. Nothing will change the fear he felt in those eleven long days without her at his side. Without her force signature blaring. No way of knowing if she was dead or alive. 

It’d been hell for him, and it was frozen over for her. 

“Of course she will,” if she wasn’t he wouldn’t know what he would do.

* * *

“How’d you find me master?” fever still wracks her but she was doing better. No longer needing the heated blankets or him to cuddle into. She let them take the blankets but didn’t let her master get up to take a chair. Not that he was hurrying to do so.

“The droid called for help,” he admitted, and the girl rolled her eyes. Of course that damn droid had been the thing to prolong her suffering and be the thing to end it.

“It wouldn’t get me another blanket,” she called out petulantly, burying her head into his collarbone, nose scrunching in distaste. His grip grows tighter at the comment, the air pushing out of his nose in a huff.

“Sleemo,” it’s not the profanity he was looking for, but he can already hear the admonishment he’d get from Obi-Wan for cursing in front of his padawan.

Ahsoka nods, “A huge sleemo,” her eyes fluttering before she drifted back off to sleep. Anakin followed not long after with the great idea of turning that droid into scrap metal.

**Author's Note:**

> Snap: allisonw1122  
> Tumblr/twitter: webtrinsic1122  
> Insta:Webtrinsic


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